SUNDAY, AUGUST 20 — NASHVILLE: 8:30am – 5pm

This morning Drs. David Weintraub and Keivan Stassun will speak on life in the universe. You have the afternoon and evening to experience the music, memorabilia, and memorable dining Nashville offers, or loll around at our classy, cushy 4.5-star hotel in the heart of Nashville.

CLASSES: Life in the Universe

We all understand intuitively that the Sun is essential for life on Earth, providing the light and heat that makes life as we know it possible. But there is any even deeper, intimate physical connection between us and the stars, for every atom in our bodies that is essential to life was forged in the hearts of previous generation of long-ago dead stars. From the carbon in every one of our cells, to the calcium in our bones and the iron in our blood, we are made from stellar ashes, expelled by ancient stars when they breathed their last.

The discovery of extraterrestrial life would be one of the most profound discoveries humankind could ever make. What then, would you think if I told you that life has already been discovered on Mars? In fact, astronomers have discovered life on Mars — canal building engineers, plants, algae, moss, nanobacteria, methanogens — at least a half dozen times over the last century. Are any of these claims right? The question is too important to dismiss; the answer is too important to ignore. What, exactly, do we know about life on Mars?

The Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum archive represents more than forty years’ worth of collecting country music books, periodicals, photographs, fan club newsletters, scrapbooks, sheet music, songbooks, video and film, oral histories, and sound recordings.